Frank Stronach’s cattle ranch triggers Florida water war

Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach’s controversial bid to build a massive cattle ranch in north-central Florida — a planned 15,000-cow operation requiring 49 million litres of water a day from the state’s famed Silver Springs aquifer — is approaching a key deadline after months of protests by environmentalists and angry residents around the city of Ocala.

Stronach’s ambitious Adena Springs Ranch would utilize state-of-the-art methods of “rotational grazing” to produce organic, grass-fed beef cattle, and expertly manage fertilizers, manure, abattoir operations and all other aspects of the “humane and productive” business meant to serve as a model for modern agriculture.

“Water is the lifeblood of Florida’s economy and essential to our health and quality of life. We must stand up and speak out for our waterways, or we risk losing them.”

But the proposed ranch has ignited a firestorm of opposition across Florida, intensified by critics’ claims that the vital Silver Springs resource is already threatened by depletion and degradation from overuse, recent droughts and long-term climate change.

“Imagine a Florida without water,” stated the Florida Conservation Coalition’s rallying cry ahead of a June protest against the Adena Springs Ranch project. “Water is the lifeblood of Florida’s economy and essential to our health and quality of life. We must stand up and speak out for our waterways, or we risk losing them.”

The bitter battle over Marion County water rights sparked by the Adena proposal gained national exposure in the U.S. earlier this summer when the controversy was covered by the New York Times. An editorial published last week by the Ocala Star-Banner captured the situation well when it described how concerns over Stronach’s project have “turned an otherwise regional water discussion into a statewide call to arms.”

The Adena Springs Ranch represents one of the main business ventures today for the 79-year-old Stronach, Austrian-born founder and honorary chairman of Toronto-area auto-parts giant Magna International. Having already established a huge presence in the U.S. with his network of thoroughbred race tracks, Stronach’s planned Florida ranch aims to exploit rising demand for high-quality, hormone-free beef from free-range cattle fed a carefully calibrated diet of nutritional grasses — eschewing the industry’s grain-fed standard.

But the vast ranch, expected to scale up to 25,000 acres and eventually use more groundwater than the entire population of the 55,000-resident City of Ocala, requires enormous amounts of a natural resource that Florida conservation groups insist is already in serious distress.

Adena has until Aug. 26 to submit its updated application to the St. Johns River Water Management District for the 13-million-gallon-a-day draw-down from Silver Springs, or to request an extension on the request.

Hank Largin, a spokesman for the regulatory body, told Postmedia News Monday that the agency will eventually assess the company’s request by looking at “whether the water use is in the public interest” and whether it would “harm other water users or the environment.”

Officials with Adena Springs Ranch, meanwhile, are angling to lower the temperature of the debate and trumpet the project’s economic and environmental benefits for Florida.

A newspaper and online advertisement touting the merits of the project has recently appeared, appealing to Floridians’ sense of humour and urging critics — in a message printed above a picture of a cow annotated by various cuts of beef — to “mooove the discussion” to a new, calmer plane.

“A lot has been said about our planned cattle operation,” the ad states. “Most of it conjecture, some of it made up and a lot of it wrong.”

“We want you to know that we have hired some of the best and most experienced hydrologists, biologists, engineers, ecologists, agronomists and other experts. We have done this because we know that they are capable of meeting the high standards set by the owner, Frank Stronach.”

The company’s PR campaign includes the pitch that the ranch can be operated in a way that successfully balances “economic vitality and environmental sustainability.”